"Yes'm; I did."
"Why?" She sat down beside him on the concrete step. "Please tell me why you didn't stay there."
Should he pretend to her it had been from fear of Beman? Should he tell her something else? Her nearness had its effect of bewilderment upon him. She had on a dress he had not seen before; he thought it prettier than the others. Her dark hair was looped under a close round hat. The faint, sweet odor of her presence, as he breathed it, made him fight against an incomprehensible impulse toward tears.
"I didn't like it there," he replied.
"Why?"
"I just didn't like it."
She looked wonderingly at him. "You mean to say you ran away from where you would have had good food and clothes and someone to look after you just back to the streets?"
"Yes'm."
"You're like a little wild thing," she observed. "I can't understand you. Don't you
